The so-called Czechoslovak coup d'état of February 1948, when the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (hereinafter referred to as KSČ) gained all political power in the country, became crucial for the development of the Czechoslovak state in the second half of the 20th century. In the following more than forty years, this party determined the direction of the development of Czechoslovak society, which should have culminated, after the period of socialism, in achieving communism (see, for example, Swain & Swain, 1998). It is, therefore, not surprising that KSČ began to forcefully promote the ideology of Marxism-Leninism, its economic and other goals related to the creation of a new (communist) society in many areas of society and the lives of individual inhabitants of Czechoslovakia. Education was no exception. On the contrary, it became one of the priority areas on which KSČ focused. The KSČ leadership did not miss that the field of education can represent a tool for educating new generations of "working people" and an intelligence loyal to the ideology of Marxism-Leninism. After all, as Zounek, Šimáně and Knotová (2018) state in their publication, teachers should have become "an important ideological tool that the party would use to equip the growing up generations and masses with communist morality" (p. 5). The structure of the education system should have, therefore, fully met the needs of the new state ideology. The goals, content, teaching methods and others were to be in full accordance with the ideas of the representatives of the communist power. KSČ used many tools to promote its ideological, economic and other goals in the field of education. Those were various administrative interventions in the form of acts, directives or decrees, both in the field of education but also economy, culture and others. In many cases, however, those set out some imaginary boundaries and directions in general. They had an impact mainly on the form of schools and their functioning. In this respect, it was the participation in the daily operation of these schools that influenced the life of a particular individual. One of the elements of the mentioned daily operation of schools in the period of socialist Czechoslovakia was, as today, also passing the school-leaving Maturita exam. That was a demanding administrative task that significantly determined the life and career of any secondary school student, including secondary technical schools (Šimáně & Kamanová, 2020). Analysis of the form and course of the Maturita exam at a secondary technical school in socialist Czechoslovakia in the period of normalization is one of the many steps necessary to understand the functioning of schools not only in the Czechoslovak history but in totalitarian and authoritarian regimes in general. This paper aims to present the form, transformation and course of the Maturita exam at a secondary technical school (ISCED11 grade 354) in socialist Czechoslovakia during the normalization period (1969–1989). That is a twenty-year period that arose after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, lasted until the Velvet Revolution in 1989, and is characterized by a new round of political regime consolidation (McDermott, 2015). The authors focus on two research questions. How did the Maturita exam at secondary technical schools change in socialist Czechoslovakia during the normalization period? At the same time, in what way were the Maturita exams at secondary technical schools influenced by the then socialist regime under the KSČ leadership? The paper is a partial result of a larger project called Secondary Technical School in Socialist Czechoslovakia from the History of the Everyday Life Point of View. Oral History Interviews with Teachers (Czech Science Foundation, no. 19-24776S).

The presented research data were obtained within a broader research survey primarily based on a historiographical approach called the history of everyday life. That can be understood as the study of destinies and a wide range of activities within the daily actions of those who often lived their life in the background of significant events or phenomena, i.e. ordinary people. In other words, it is a study of routine but also unexpected activities of often anonymous individuals or groups of people that lead to political or event history, to the so-called macrohistory (e.g. Eckert & Jones, 2002). In connection with the topic of this study, it is an attempt to get insight into the everyday life of secondary technical schools in the period of socialist Czechoslovakia. Specifically, the issue of Maturita exams. One method of approaching the history of everyday life is oral history. Through conversation with the respondent, oral history provides information about his life, profession, opinions, etc. but also enables to get a better understanding of the past, which is the subject of research and of which the respondent was a direct participant. The authors result from 24 oral-historical interviews conducted in 2018–2021. The respondents were 13 teachers of vocational and general subjects who worked at secondary technical schools during the normalization period. There were usually two interviews conducted with each of the respondents, exceptionally only one or three. All interviews were recorded on a dictaphone and transcribed literally and anonymized. The transcripts were analyzed using the Atlas.ti software, which is primarily intended for qualitative data analysis. The first step of the analysis was carried out using the so-called condensation method (see Vaněk & Mücke, 2015). Subsequently, the authors proceeded to the so-called transcript indexation. That means creating a list of individual interview elements such as data, facts, the specifics of the respondent's narration, etc. In this way, the respondent's whole story was easier to compose. Thematic analysis through open coding was also partly used (Flick, 2006). The oral history method was supplemented by the study of period legislation and periodicals focused on the issue of secondary technical education. At the same time, archival materials were used to a limited extent. These are materials from the National Archives in Prague (from the Ministry of Education collection from 1948–1989) and the Brno City Archives, which have not been published anywhere yet and which appropriately complement the studied issues.

In general, the research results can contribute to a deeper understanding of the development of secondary vocational education in socialist Czechoslovakia and the daily life of schools and their actors. They can contribute not only to understanding the changes that took place after the fall of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia in 1989 but also to the international debate on the formation of education in post-socialist states during the 20th century, everyday school life and the teaching profession in totalitarian regimes, also, in general, to understand the functioning of totalitarian or autocratic regimes (see e.g. Kestere & Kalke, 2018, Rahi-Tamm & Saleniece, 2016; Mincu, 2016). Specifically, the results of our research suggest that the legislative framework for holding Maturita exams was exceeded to varying degrees, e.g. in practical training, final theses and practical exams, where their form was adapted to the needs of the school or cooperating plant. At the same time, it turns out that the students' success in Maturita exams depended not only on their skills and knowledge but also on their political views and class affiliation. For the success of the Maturita exam, especially in the Czech and Russian languages, it was desirable, for example, to glorify communist and Soviet heroes. The opposite conduct could have been a reason for the unfavourable grades. However, as at present, the course of the Maturita exam, especially its oral part, was influenced by the general human factor and the individual interests and needs of the teachers or school principals, which could have taken on different dimensions.

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